Alan Furst - The Spies of Warsaw

He shrugged. “ Like isn’t the word, but the job has grown into me. I wanted to quit, a few months ago, but not now. Now there’s a particular operation under way. It’s important, possibly very important.”

She smiled and said, “Is it ever difficult for you that you can’t speak openly of such things?”

“Very difficult,” he said. “Especially here, with you.”

“Oh well,” she said. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” She busied herself with the compress, putting more cold water on the towel. “Does this make it feel better?”

He said it did, and the conversation turned to their evening together-going out, doing something, a change. A search of the newspaper turned up a French film, and an hour later they went to the movies.

5 April.

At last, a response to the contact with Dr. Lapp. But it did not arrive in any of the forms Mercier had anticipated. Not cabled dispatch, not letter by pouch, and not, thank heaven, Bruner’s appearance in Warsaw, which Mercier had feared. No, it came by mail, a personal letter to his apartment, in lovely blue script. Undated, with no heading. A secret communication? Yes, in a way it was.

My dear colonel,

Kindly forgive the delay in answering your communication, but it inspired a most disheartening turmoil in these parts-your rural connection will have given you the opportunity to observe chickens in a barnyard beset by a playful dog.

In any event, it will be my pleasure to continue discussions with the individual in question, and much the best to do so in this city, where we can meet quietly, privately, and in comfort. A telephone call to Auteil 7407-a local call, naturally-will initiate a meeting the same day, and no mention of names will be required. This method of contact is exclusive to the individual in question.

Please be good enough to destroy this letter, which finds you, I trust, in good health and good spirits.

With my most sincere good wishes,

Aristide R. J. de Beauvilliers

10 April.

And then, in time, a second communication. Had Dr. Lapp foreseen the frenzy that his offer would produce within the French General Staff? Mercier suspected he had. Mercier suspected that Dr. Lapp was one of those senior officers in the shadow world with a sophisticated sense of human behavior-not a visionary, a cynic-and a man who understood that, at the end of the day, the Abwehr, the Deuxieme Bureau, and all the rest of them worked pretty much the same way. This time the communication came in the form of a note that arrived in a sealed envelope delivered by a private courier. It said simply that it would be good to see Mercier again and suggested the following day, at 5:15 in the afternoon, at the Gorovsky Bookstore, 28, Marszalkowska. And signed, Dr. L.

For the event-and Mercier informed no one, in the spirit of de Beauvilliers’s letter, where he was going or why-he wore his best suit and a freshly laundered shirt, with somber tie-and made sure to enter the store at precisely 5:15. At this hour, there were only two or three customers, and he found Dr. Lapp, now in his traditional bow tie, in the back. When he looked up and saw Mercier, he said, “Do you know this book?” He held it up, Rosja-Polska, 1815–1830, and said, “Szymon Askenazy, one of their great historians. There are actually quite a few.”

“Do you read comfortably in Polish, Dr. Lapp?”

“I do, though I must keep a dictionary at hand.”

Mercier found this combination-Buster Keaton reading esoteric Polish history-modestly amusing. Dr. Lapp closed the book and put it back in its place on the shelf. “I believe the office will be more comfortable,” he said.

“The manager won’t mind?”

Dr. Lapp’s smile was impish. “We own the store, colonel. And it does very nicely.”

The office had drifted, over the years, to a state of comfortable decay-peeling paint, water stains on the ceiling, furniture worn out years ago-with stacks of books on the desk, in bookcases, on the floor, everywhere. A private world, calm and lost, the view through the cloudy window a courtyard where a wooden bench encircled a giant elm. Only the telephone, an antique from the twenties, told the visitor that he was not in the previous century. On the walls, posters for art exhibitions and concerts-the French were avid for culture, whether they liked it, understood it, paid for it, or not, but the Poles beat them hands down. Dr. Lapp sat in the desk chair, its wheels squeaking as he drew himself up to the desk. “Any luck, colonel?”

“Yes, though they took their time answering my dispatch.”

“I rather thought they might.”

“But very good luck, I believe. I’ve had a communication from a man called de Beauvilliers, General de Beauvilliers.”

Dr. Lapp allowed Mercier to see that he was impressed, and said, “Indeed.”

“You know who he is?”

“I do. The perfect choice.”

“He suggests that you meet with him in Paris. Would that be satisfactory?”

“It would.”

“I’ve brought along a telephone number he sent; he will see you the day you call. And you needn’t mention your name, the number is for your exclusive use.” Mercier placed a slip of paper on the desk.

“Very thoughtful of him. You couldn’t have made a better choice.”

“It wasn’t up to me, Dr. Lapp, this was General de Beauvilliers’s personal decision.”

“Even better,” Dr. Lapp said. “A General Staff is always a field of divergent opinions-ours is no different-but among these officers there are always two or three who have an intuitive understanding of what the future might hold.”

“One wouldn’t have to be all that intuitive to understand Herr Hitler’s intentions.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you, but you’d be wrong. Do you know the Latin proverb Mundus vult decipi, ergo decepiatur ? Herr Hitler’s favorite saying: The world wants to be deceived, therefore let it be deceived. And he isn’t wrong. Newspapers on the continent explain every day why there won’t be war. And I assure you there will be, unless the right people determine to stop it.”

“I can only hope this meeting is a step in that direction,” Mercier said.

“We shall see.”

For a moment, Mercier paused. Here was an opportunity-take it, or not? He had from the Rozens a name, Kohler, an affiliation, the Black Front, and a target, the I.N. 6 bureau of the German General Staff. And, if Dr. Lapp couldn’t help him take a step forward, then no one could. “I wonder, Dr. Lapp,” he said slowly, “if I might ask you a favor.”

“One may always ask, colonel. Are you asking at General de Beauvilliers’s behest?”

Mercier paused, then said, “No, it’s nothing he suggested, for this conversation, but I don’t believe he’d mind, if he knew.”

“You’ve been honorable, colonel, which I appreciate. You haven’t … taken advantage … of a situation that could put me in real danger. So then, what sort of favor do you require?”

“I’ve become interested, in the course of my work here, in the Black Front, Hitler’s most determined enemies in Germany.”

Delicately, Dr. Lapp cleared his throat. “I do know who you mean, colonel, and regret that they haven’t been more effective. But I suggest you go carefully with this crowd, those who remain with us-most of them are in the ground, or wherever the Gestapo put them. Very extreme, these people. Captain Rohm, before he was murdered in ‘thirty-four, recommended that the conservative industrialists be hanged. Dear me.”

“I will be careful, Dr. Lapp; I would greatly prefer to remain aboveground. But I cannot move forward on a certain project until I obtain information that only a senior Black Front member might possess.”